50mm

I'm looking at buying a 50mm lens and wanted to know what you guys though of this one.

http://the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ ... eview.aspx

Not familiar with that very lens, but i swear by Canon EF lenses. Heard stuff about this one being pretty good, but from personal experience i couldn't say whether to go for it or not.

The review seems to rate it very highly though, and reviews are generally what i go for when purchasing products.

To be honest, that's the best thing you can buy. It's not way better than the 1.8 - in fact it's got more noticeable barrel distortion and worse lens flare. Why is it better? Full time manual, metal lens-mount, and more vibrant colours.

I bought the 1.8 due to budget constraints way back when (for $100 you can't really go wrong on a lens that produces wicked-sharp pictures), and now am hoping to sell it in the foreseeable future and pick up the 1.4. Your night-time stars will look better, too

Okay. I'm a newbie, but why would you want to buy a lens like this? Please explain. I have a 18-70, 70-210 and another one, can't remember off hand. But they have a range of views. Why would you want something like this if you can't zoom in or out. Again, I'm a newbie so take it easy on me.

Prime lenses offer extremely better results (generally), due to the ability to concentrate on creating an optimized fixed focal-length. Less parts, less weight, better glass = lower price.
Sure you lose the convenience of a variable focal-length lens, but you get superb image quality.

Also it would be almost imposable to find a zoom lens with a 50mm focal length at a 1.4 fstop, even if there is one, its going to be ridiculously expensive.

Yup. You could always spend the extra $3k and go for the f/1.0

I get it now.

Well I got the lens in the mail today, so be ready for some pictures to come shortly.

Looking forward to seeing what you get with this lens.